


Waiting game...

by coplins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Infidelity, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 02:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coplins/pseuds/coplins
Summary: He’d stopped asking Dean to stay. Dean hadn’t stopped telling him no. But this time it had been different.





	Waiting game...

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this can be read as a stand alone I think? But it's really a continuation of [For now...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12019035)
> 
> I haven't made them into a series because I originally hadn't planned to do more than one. Yet, here we are. :P If we end up with one more I'll make a series of it, but I don't plan to write a follow-up.

_You make it sound so easy. Like I have a choice. I don’t. What I want doesn’t matter, never has. I feel so lost. I used to feel so proud that I was strong enough to carry this duty. Stronger than the rest. Unwavering. Never hesitating. Ruthless. Powerful._

_I’m not even sure who I am anymore. I’ve lost myself to the role I play and then you came to hold up a mirror and I saw… nothing. A shell who does everything right. Numb. Hollow._

_What is it you see when you look at me? I can’t see it. I’ve forgotten how to. I only see it when I watch it reflected in your eyes._

Michael runs a hand over the glass of the mirror to remove the fog that’s overtaken it. He stares at his reflection until it mists over again, dark curls dripping wet, the first hints of gray glistening in the fluorescent bathroom light. Skin marred by lovebites and bruises from Dean’s rough worship. Dean’s not like that. Michael knows that. Dean’s soft, romantic and loving. Michael’s the one demanding to be manhandled, craving the force and the physical pain. Subconsciously punishing himself perhaps. He doesn’t have to voice the demand―Dean knows him better than he knows himself sometimes. When Dean leaves the bruises remain. Michael wishes they’d never fade.

How many times had he not caught Dean blowing softly on them, butterflying kisses on his marks when he thought Michael was asleep? Like he was trying to heal the damage he’d done.

He’d stopped asking Dean to stay. Dean hadn’t stopped telling him no. But this time it had been different.

Michael gives his foggy reflection a melancholy smile. Dean knows him so well, still he doesn’t get it. Michael’s put himself aside for so long that he could live for a year on a few stolen hours that was theirs alone. He’s got infinite patience. Dean’s the one who can’t bear the wait. Dean’s the one torn asunder by their separation, worn down like a sandstone shore constantly barraged by a stormy ocean, all heart and living in the moment. Michael doesn’t have to do a damned thing. He can wait. Their union was destined. They’re two parts of a whole. 

The difference is that Dean carries both pieces. When they unite again after months of separation, the part that is Michael floods back into him, fills up every hollow and crevice. Makes him whole. How can he pine when he’s not really there to begin with except in the moments they share?

Dean stayed longer this time. Hesitated with his hand on the door handle, one foot already out the door. “ _You know what? I can claim there was a research problem. I can stay for a coupla days. Cas won’t need to know._ ” When the door closed Dean was still inside.

One of those blessed nights they’d gotten hammered and Dean talked. Slurred a sleepy inebriated fantasy borne from post coital desperation for his impending departure. “Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all. Let’s just leave. Change our names and move to New Zealand, you and I. Never come back.”

“Why New Zealand?” 

“Cuz Australia is full of really fucking poisonous animals, dumbass.”

A chuckle to cover up distress. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can. You’re rich and I’m awesome. Just step out the door and _poof_ , we’re gone.” Dean’s smile―drunk-sweet and hopeful.

The very idea terrifies Michael. It obliterates every facet of the role he’s played since his father denied him a true childhood and mantled him with a persona required to bear the power he inherited. It’s not what he imagined. He’s been waiting for Dean to come take his ruling place beside him, be the sword in his hand. A conduit of his power as well as a lover.

Running away like two teenagers who’ve read too much Shakespeare? 

Must it come to that? 

He stares at himself in the mirror. He’s waited for a decade for the levy to break and it’s so close now. He can feel it. He’d say running away is the coward’s route, yet it scares him more than staying to face the consequences. He’d imagined there would come a day when he’d have to face his little brother―look Cas straight in the eyes and tell him that Dean’s no longer his to call boyfriend. It would be messy and painful on all sides, but ten years is a long time to acknowledge and own one’s sins. He’s ready for it.

But running away? Having to face himself and learn who he is when he’s stripped bare of the mask stitched onto his face before he was out of diapers? Petrifying.

It’s the first time he’s been the one to hush Dean, holding fingers to his lips in a bid of secrecy. “Shh. That’s alcohol talking. Darling, I can’t. Go to sleep.”

_You make it sound so simple, love. Like I have a choice. I don’t. That’s not how it works. You’re the one who has to choose. You’re the one with free will, who’ll have to battle your demons of guilt and betrayal. Until then, I’d rather have this. Purloined moments in time, months apart. In this waiting game, I can’t lose. I’ve got infinite patience._

He knows.

He knows, somewhere out there Dean’s the one suffering, the man he pledged his love and fidelity to sleeping soundly in the other room while Dean stares at his image in the mirror, haunted by his lies, seeing Michael before his inner eye. Dean’s crumbling. He’ll come back like he always do. And soon enough, he’ll stay for good.

All Michael has to do is wait…


End file.
